The invention relates to improvements for land vehicles such as off road equipment and, in particular, to guards for the drive of wheels or sprockets for the same.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,713,644 illustrates a cutter device to reduce wear and tear on the final drive of a crawler such as manufactured Caterpillar, Inc. This cutter device is especially useful on machines operating on landfills that accept residential and commercial refuse, for example. Landfill environments present severe service conditions on machinery due to the mix of debris typically found at such sites. Material over which a machine runs tends to be drawn up and around rotary parts eventually leading to excessive wear through abrasion and oftentimes to catastrophic failure because of destruction of seals between parts rotating relative to one another. A need exists for a device that can protect drive areas of equipment of the type described in landfills, construction sites and other off road situations where the environment is adverse and that provides an alternative to the cutter device disclosed in the aforementioned patent for situations that are less than extreme.
More specifically, rotating drive wheels in the form of track chain sprockets, for instance, rotate relative to their support housings and normally have associated seals to protect bearings and gears within the housings that support the sprocket hubs for rotation. The housings are subject to high wear rates through abrasion by debris entwined on the rotating parts. This debris eventually can wear through the walls of the housing causing catastrophic failure of bearings and related parts.
Where a seal on a final drive of a crawler is damaged prematurely by intrusion of debris, the cost to repair the same may range, by way of example, between $3,000 to $4,000. Wear on a final drive housing or sprocket hub can cost as much as $7,000 to $8,000 in repair. A loss of oil from a damaged seal can result in repair work for internal damage of as much as $50,000.
It is desirable, especially for large machines where the major drive components are too heavy to be manipulated by hand, that any protective guard be capable of being installed without dismantling and reinstalling such major components of the machine.